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World TP Reviews

Transfer pricing

The transfer pricing practice at Barbosa Mussnich Aragao is led by Jose Otavio Haddad Faloppa, and the firm is comprised of 10 partners, 31 lawyers, and 15 other staff members. Over the last few years the team has been increasing market penetration not only by reinforcing its high-end M&A and capital markets-related expertise, but also by consolidating its presence in consulting, litigation, cross-border and indirect taxation.

In the last year, it has promoted Daniel Loria as a transactional tax partner and added Petrus Ruff do Valle as a senior associate of transactional tax. It has recently launched its French desk, created in order to provide French investors in Brazil with personalised legal support.

Luis Gustavo Bichara leads the Bichara Advogados tax and transfer pricing practices, while the rest of the team is recognised for its expertise in tax litigation and consultancy. It is one of the most representative firms in Brazil and is heavily involved in the paper/pulp, telecommunications, real estate, electricity, education, pharmaceutical, aerospace, food and beverage, cosmetics and construction industries.

The firm’s experience in general corporate tax and transfer pricing is exhibited in its representation of Veracel Celulose, a global pulp and paper company. It provided legal advice to the company, from the inspection phase to the sponsorship of the defence presented, in which the team’s transfer pricing expertise was crucial to design the strategy to avoid the application of the PECEX method. Despite its $80 million value, the case also proved important because of the argument of the assessment, which argued that the company completed an incorrect field on its 2012 income tax return, which resulted in the accidental election to apply the PECEX method.

The firm has been involved in numerous pro-bono workshops. It assists Instituto Bola Pra Frente, a non-governmental institution that helps children through programmes. The work consisted of auditing the institution’s payroll in order to alleviate its tax burden.

Brazuna Ruschmann & Soriano Sociedade de Advogados is a Brazilian boutique providing services in the areas of tax and transfer pricing. It is overseen by Ciro Cesar Soriano de Oliveira, Cristiano Frederico Ruschmann and Jose Luis Ribeiro Brazuna, and employs six other professionals. It was established in 2013 following a merger between the former Dias Carneiro Advogados and Soriano & Woiler Advogados tax departments.

The firm offers services in the planning and structuring of inbound and outbound investments. Over the past year, it represented major pharmaceutical and technology companies in a transfer pricing judicial and administrative dispute, which involved leading the case on the illegality of Brazilian IRS Ordinance, challenging mixed transfer pricing methods applied by tax auditors for the importation of products used for both reselling and manufacturing activities, and the incorrect comparison of prices based on products that are different from a market point of view, notwithstanding the same tax classification code.

Andre Gomes de Oliveira heads the Castro Barros Sobral Gomes Advogados transfer pricing practice. The team also includes, in total, 20 lawyers divided between its Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Brasilia offices.

The firm’s experience in the general corporate tax and transfer pricing industries is exhibited in its representation of Hutchinson do Brasil, led by Andre Gomes de Oliveira, Patricia Varela, Leando Canarim and Carolina Silveira Becman. It assisted the client in reviewing its global service agreements, in order to verify the possibility of treating them as cost-sharing agreements. This constituted a strategic discussion for the company, as with many multinationals, since expenses incurred by a company in Brazil under cost-sharing agreements may be deductible for the purpose of calculating its corporate income tax and social contribution on net profit, and amounts remitted abroad are not subject to the taxation of services and are not subject to the Brazilian transfer pricing rules.

Moreover, CBSG has been working in partnership with other firms to design transfer pricing solutions that accommodate the OECD methodology and the Brazilian transfer pricing unilateral fixed margin methods distribution and service provider clients.

Deloitte is a leading firm in the Brazilian transfer pricing market. Its team of highly skilled professionals offers a full range of specialised transfer pricing services with a focus on advisory and compliance. Carlos Ayub leads its transfer pricing practice out of Sao Paulo, where it is dedicated to helping clients leverage technology to design, implement and monitor transfer pricing functions. The team’s transfer pricing applications are specifically developed to deal with the Brazilian environment and are aimed at helping clients comply with Brazilian legislation.

The firm’s experience in the Brazilian transfer pricing market can be seen in its representation of a Brazilian subsidiary of a US multinational in a project that required a deep dive analysis on the roots of a transfer pricing adjustment that was causing double taxation. The project’s objective was to perform a business and transfer pricing analysis aiming to obtain a potential transfer pricing adjustment reduction.

Felsberg Advogados is a full-service law firm that provides consultation and advisory services in transfer pricing, tax matters and procedures applicable to imports and exports.

The firm’s transfer pricing experience is exhibited in its involvement in a case led by Anna Flavia Izelli, Gabriel Paranagua and Isis Pires. The case involved advice focused not only on the interpretation of the tax implications that derive from the execution of CCAs but also on the conditions and items that should be included in the CCA itself and further related documents.

Over the past year the firm has added Paulo Penteado de Faria e Silva Neto and Flavia Ganzella as senior associates, as well as promoted Rodrigo Prado Goncalves to partner.

Gaia Silva Gaede Advogados is a leading Brazilian firm established across five major cities in Brazil. The firm has six partners dispersed between its various offices: Enio Zaha, Alexandre Troia and George Anastassiadis based in Sao Paolo, Mauro Jacobs based in Rio de Janeiro, Antonio Pacheco based in Curitiba and Marcio Medina based in Belo Horizonte. Collectively, the team provides a full spectrum of transfer pricing services, such as calculating transfer pricing methods, and sophisticated planning and legal consultancy.

The firm’s transfer pricing experience is shown in its R$60 million representation of Log In – Logistica Intermodal. Led by Mauro da Cruz and Ana Luisa Siqueira, the firm provided full legal assistance regarding tax and financial structuring of the financial operation abroad for the acquisition of vessels used in transportation, including in its scope of the analysis of the fiscal risks arising from its operation, such as transfer price taxation.

The team added Eduardo Fuser Pommorsky as a senior associate in September 2017.

Gustavo Haddad leads the Lefosse Advogados transfer pricing practice. It is comprised of five partners and provides tax structuring, tax litigation and due diligence advice on M&A, capital markets and banking transactions. On an international front, the firm has often advised in matters of cross-border transactions where national and international tax laws come into play.

Lobo de Rizzo Advogados provides a full range of services in relation to transfer pricing and domestic and international tax. In the last year the team has significantly increased its capabilities in transfer pricing litigation, as well as transfer pricing advisory. Its clients come from a variety of industries including, pharmaceutical, automotive, steel, commodities, oil and R&D among others.

The firm’s extensive transfer pricing experience includes the firm’s representation of a French multinational in the chemical sector, where it also provided advice in alternative remuneration mechanisms for intangible property held by a French Parent Company in a potential intercompany transaction with its Brazilian subsidiary. The case involved creative use of various mechanisms active under the Brazil-France tax treaty.

Machado Associados Advogados & Consultores is led by Luis Rogerio Farinelli and is comprised of six partners and four other professionals. It has a multidisciplinary practice helping companies in all transfer pricing matters and has assisted clients with matters concerning calculations and planning and provided defence in litigation at all levels of the administrative and judiciary branches. The team is involved in a variety of industries including pharmaceutical, petrochemical, oil and gas, medicines and automobile.

The firm has offices in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia, and works with peer law firms in all other Brazilian states.

Over the past year, the firm represented the Brazilian association of personal hygiene, perfumes and cosmetics industries and the Brazilian association of direct sales in filing a petition requesting the admission of the associations as impartial and voluntary advisors to a court of law in the direct action of unconstitutionality filed by the CNI at the federal supreme court against a rule that significantly changed the calculation of the ICMS payable by the tax substitution regime in all states.

The team recently hired Gustavo Boni dos Santos as a senior lawyer in international taxation and Felipe Cassarotti de Souza as senior lawyer in tax litigation.

Machado Meyer Sendacz & Opice Advogados is well known across Brazil for its straightforward approach to highly complex matters involving both high profile and corporate transactions and strategic tax litigation. Led by 12 partners in Brazil, it provides clients with experience in direct and indirect taxes, customs regulations, transfer pricing and the financial industry.

The firm’s transactional tax experience is exhibited in its representation of Iberdrola Energia in a merger of Elektro Holding into Neonergia.

Over the last year, the firm promoted Daniel Monteiro Peixoto to partner.

Marchant TP is a specialist transfer pricing firm that was founded in 2015. It includes four partners and eight associates. It has extensive experience in transfer inspections conducted by Brazilian tax authorities, as well as transfer pricing litigation in both administrative and judicial levels. It also provides transfer pricing litigation services to its clients.

Diego Marchant heads the firm and, over the last year, it provided full consultancy on a very difficult case involving the import of goods and controversy with tax authorities. The case is particularly notable due to its application of transfer pricing methods applicable to commodities, which have been controversial.

Pinheiro Neto Advogados offers services in the areas of planning, auditing and legal advisory. The team is comprised of five partners and 19 other senior associates including Sergio Farina Filho, who oversees the practice. It also covers tax planning, assessment on tax inspections, tax treaties, implementing of APAs, MAPs and interface with auditors, and other related activities.

The firm’s experience in Brazilian transfer pricing matters can be seen in its involvement in a transfer pricing dispute on methodologies in an undue application of the resale-less-profit (PRL) method by the Brazilian tax authorities. Comercial Sao Nicolau merged into Saint Gobain Vidros do Brasil, and imported goods into Brazil and subsequently resold these products in the Brazilian market. In this particular case, the tax authorities intended to apply transfer pricing adjustments on the imports carried out by Comercial Sao Nicolau, based on the PRL method, although in its defence the company provided evidence to show that the PRL method should only apply in a case where the Brazilian importer resold the product in Brazil to unrelated parties. The case is particularly important because the Brazilian administrative courts usually adopt a negative approach towards taxpayers on transfer pricing disputes.

Siqueira Castro Advogados is specialised in both litigation and consulting and renders legal services to clients from almost every economic sector, including agribusiness, automotive, construction and infrastructure, food, education, financial services and banking, pharmaceuticals and telecommunications.

Over the last year the firm represented Transpetro on an annulment action filed against the federal union seeking the nullification of tax assessments resulting from Perdcomps, which originated the tax execution, as well as the granting of tutelage in order to suspend it from the liability of these debts related to that of Perdcomps.

The firm recently welcomed Gabriela Miziara Jajah and I Jen Huang as partners in Brazil.

Trench Rossi Watanabe (associated with Baker McKenzie) has a high profile transfer pricing practice with a dedicated team of professionals with extensive financial backgrounds with deep knowledge of accounting and economics. The team has a long-standing cooperation agreement with Baker McKenzie, the largest law firm with economists fully dedicated to transfer pricing and global benchmark studies, and is therefore able to advise multinationals to accommodate situations of double taxation conflict, as well as providing deep and efficient tax analysis for Brazilian companies.

The firm’s experience with transfer pricing analysis can be seen in its work, led by Clarissa Machado and Thiago Del Bel, with a major sport and equipment company in a strategic transfer pricing legal analysis and compliance in regards to all of its imports.

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